Useless degrees

I very fundamentally do not believe that children are 'born not very bright', as Woodhead of the resonant nom parlant says. There are so many factors that you would need to consider first before determining what, if anything, was the case at birth. A human life is an incredibly complex nexus of causes and effects, and some of the most important causes--the economic conditions in which you grow up, the love of your family, the school you go to, the teachers you have, how your friends influence you, any disasters or lucky breaks that may happen to you, etc.--and I could go on for hours, but that would be boring, because we all know these factors--all shape people much more than more minor factors, such as what colour your nursery was painted in.

I would be very surprised if any genetic theorist was able to explain all of the relevant factors away and put it all down to 'genes', a reductionist stub of an explanation.

What is true is that people have different potentials right from birth, but I remain to be convinced that there is a meaningful case to be made that some people have a lesser potential and others a greater potential. Naturally, growing up privileged can mean a greater potential to remain privileged later in life (and I use the word 'privileged' advisedly, as I don't think that there is a scale on which that is immediately preferable--real privileges are things like an intact family, and a lot of wealthy and supposedly 'privileged' families are desperately unhappy, whereas it's quite possible for a lowly working-class family to be much happier), but irrespective of such external factors, there is no reason to assume that a baby, at the moment he or she is born, might have lesser or greater potential than any other.

The difference in potential is rather to do with different categories of ability--being good at mechanical tasks, being good at linguistic tasks, visual tasks, etc., and unless stimulation is given in those areas in which a baby has potential, and I know of so many cases of people for whom something went wrong at a crucial juncture in their lives and who were given little chance to continue to develop their unrecognised potential.

By the time people reach the age at which they qualify for primary, secondary, or higher education, a lot of things will have taken place that shape their further course in life, and they may well appear to have greater or lesser potential. A child that has received little academic stimulation will generally not have developed much of the academic ability that is the prerequisite for study. By contrast, it is entirely possible that someone who has little academic interest or ability will have received considerable academic stimulation, and that this stimulation can really mask their original state.

What you see is not necessarily what you get.